Recent Opinions

The world is full of unsolved problems. It is also full of problems for which solutions already exist, if we only leverage them. When we slow down for a minute, consider the available options, and more carefully assess the consequences of various modes of action, we have a better chance of directing our efforts where they ought to go–for the good of ourselves and the issues we face.

Matthew Cohen ’18 and Johnathan Bowes ’15 debate whether Puerto Rico should become the 51st state in the United States. Cohen urges us to question the previous votes in Puerto Rico as well as its tremendous debt while Bowes argues the US should respect the will of Puerto Ricans in whatever they choose.

New design course in store for sophomores

The class of 2016 can anticipate a new course offering next year from the Institute of Design called Designing Your Stanford, which will apply elements from the popular Designing Your Life course to help underclassmen make the most of their Stanford experience.

According to Dave Evans, an instructor for Designing Your Life and one of the faculty leaders for Designing Your Stanford, the idea for the course came out of student interest – sophomores were often caught sneaking in to the upperclassmen-only Designing Your Life to map out their life after college.

Given this interest, and results from the Study of Undergraduate Education at Stanford (SUES) report that concluded sophomores need more resources for navigating course offerings and time to reflect on their interests, the Institute of Design and SUES committee began to discuss creating a course that would help sophomores map out their Stanford career, according to Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education Harry Elam.

“We want to give students more tools to reflect on their values and goals, and to think about their educational plans in this context,” Elam wrote in an email to The Daily. “We hope this class will provide some of these tools.”

Evans said that planning formally began over the summer and is still underway. A pilot course comprised of selected sophomores is expected to launch this spring, followed by a regular course launch next fall. Other members of the planning committee include Executive Director of the Design Program Bill Burnett, other faculty members, seniors who had taken “Designing Your Life” and four interns from the Class of 2015.

According to intern Andrew Rodriguez ’15, the summer work consisted of brainstorming sessions, modeling prototype exercises for the class and reading literature on developmental psychology and transformational learning.

One of the prototypes Rodriguez described included inviting sophomores on campus to select five potential majors from a list of all of the majors Stanford offers. They were instructed to choose one major that they never would have considered before, or one they had not even known existed.

The students then had to explain why they chose the unusual major, often an academic interest they wanted to pursue but wouldn’t necessarily commit to as a major. They were given alternative ways of fulfilling this interest by talking to professors in the field, reading research papers on the subject and joining affiliated student groups, Rodriguez said.

Rodriguez and the other interns were asked to participate in the summer planning because of their participation in a seminar called Reflections, which was offered last winter and will return this year.

The students met once a week in sections for 90 minutes for no academic credit to “stop and think about what they want in the larger context,” Rodriguez said.

Because of his fulfilling experience in Reflections, Rodriguez said he jumped at the chance to participate in the creation of a course that he feels is necessary for underclassmen.

“It’s not just about encouraging people to think more, because everyone wants to think more, but it gives you different ways to think about how to approach the decisions you have to make in your college life,” Rodriguez said.

Elam said that at a time when students are working on declaring their major, the course would provide a great resource due to its design roots.

“Design thinking is cross-disciplinary, and we think it can be a useful tool for students intending to major in any field,” Elam said.

Evans echoed Elam’s perspective on the application of design to any major, adding that in a “post-Web 2.0 world,” innovation principles are particularly critical to students’ education.

“Other parts of the world are going to beat us at manufacturing, other parts of the world are going to beat us at a lot of things,” Evans said, “But clearly a core competency should be creativity and innovation in North America in general, in Silicon Valley in particular, and in the hub of Silicon Valley which we tend to think of as Stanford.”

As planning continues on through the spring quarter pilot, Evans hopes that students will get excited for this opportunity and that it will serve the purpose for which it was designed.

“If we develop something that meets a real need and is fun, valuable and useful, then students take care of the rest,” Evans said.

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Carrying forward the interest in contemplation both at Windhover and during Contemplation by Design week, the Office for Religious life and HIP are collaborating to offer a labyrinth walking fundamentals [...]

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Carrying forward the interest in contemplation both at Windhover and during Contemplation by Design week, the Office for Religious life and HIP are collaborating to offer a labyrinth walking fundamentals workshop. This 2-session program will provide you with knowledge of the rich history and stress reduction and resilience-building benefits of the contemplative practice of labyrinth walking. Each session will begin in the classroom followed by a practicum of walking the Windhover labyrinth. Class will be held rain or shine. Please dress accordingly. Please note: registration required for this free class.

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COMFORT WOMEN WANTED brings to light the memory of 200,000 young women, referred to as “comfort women,” who were systematically exploited as sex slaves in Asia during World War II, and increases awareness of sexual violence against women during wartime. It is based on interviews with Korean, Chinese, Taiwanese, Indonesian, Filipino, and Dutch “comfort women” survivors and a former Japanese soldier from WWII conducted by the filmmaker, Chang-Jin Lee, a Korean-born visual artist from New York City.

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We are a social action VSO and bake challah bread on Thursdays at Hillel in the back building (across from the Haas Center). The proceeds this week go to MAZON: [...]

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We are a social action VSO and bake challah bread on Thursdays at Hillel in the back building (across from the Haas Center). The proceeds this week go to MAZON: a national non-profit working to end hunger among all faiths and backgrounds. We work with a variety of groups around campus, including social action groups, interfaith groups, and Greek life. Everyone is welcome to come join us in making challah.

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The Stanford Institute for Theoretical Physics announces the second mini-course by Stanford physics faculty on recent fundamental advances in theoretical physics. The winter quarter's lectures will be by Professor Sean [...]

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The Stanford Institute for Theoretical Physics announces the second mini-course by Stanford physics faculty on recent fundamental advances in theoretical physics. The winter quarter’s lectures will be by Professor Sean Hartnoll.

Black holes have the remarkable property of irreversibility: if you fall into a black hole you can’t get out (classically). This immediately suggested a connection with the other famous irreversibility in physics: the law of increase of entropy. Since the 70s, this connection between black holes and thermodynamic systems has been fleshed out in increasing detail and has lead to surprising conclusions. I will give an introduction to a recent body of work showing how black holes can in fact be used to shed light on exotic materials of interest in condensed matter physics, including the still-not-understood high temperature superconductors.

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THE LADY ONSTAGE explores the life and work of Olga Knipper, a name unfamiliar to most, but perhaps best known as “Chekhov’s wife”. Olga was a key creative genius in [...]

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THE LADY ONSTAGE explores the life and work of Olga Knipper, a name unfamiliar to most, but perhaps best known as “Chekhov’s wife”. Olga was a key creative genius in the history of modern theatre; she was not only the originator of the leading female roles in Chekhov’s four major plays, but also became the de facto chief representative of the Moscow Art Theater when they toured the United States. THE LADY ONSTAGE takes us into the psyche of an actress at the moment when theater changed forever, giving us an inside perspective on the radical choices artists make in the name of Art and Love.

March’s Rough Reading presents an intimate reading of Erin Bregman’s new play in early draft form, offering audiences a rare opportunity to engage directly with the artistic process of bringing a play to life. Produced by Playwrights Foundation in partnership with the National Center for New Plays at Stanford.